In case you’re wondering (though we doubt you are), SecondLife was not failure, according to its founder Philip Rosedale. Sure, as pandodaily reports, there were “chaotic transitions in management and pretty sizable layoffs” -- not to mention a failure to grow usership -- but all that, Rosedale, doesn’t equate to failure. On the contrary, Rosedale thinks his virtual world should be commended for maintaining an active community of about 1 million members for as long as it has. 

Last week, Microsoft revealed that is was taking a $6.2 billion non-cash charge to account for its $6.3 billion acquisition of aQuantive in 2007. (In other words, the deal was a complete wash.) In a little postgame analysis, Reuters attempts to explain how the software giant could have had such misguided expectations, and why the banner ad business is such a tough racket. What’s the main culprit, according to Reuters? Facebook. 

With domestic growth slowing sharply, Facebook’s future success rests on its ability to conquer new markets, and Asian regions in particular. To that end, the public company has invested in The Asia Pacific Gateway -- a 6,214 mile Asian undersea cable project, which is designed to improve Internet speeds for citizens and businesses in the region. The cable will run directly from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan, with links branching off to other countries. As BBC News reports, “Facebook said the move would support efforts to boost membership in what was already one of its fastest growing markets.” 

Giving the iPhone a run for its money, Samsung Electronics can hardly keep up with demand for its Android-supported Galaxy smartphone. Profit from the South Korean company’s mobile division is likely to have more than doubled to around 4.4 trillion won from a year ago, with sales of around 50 million smartphones -- at a rate of 380 every minute, Reuters reports. Better yet, “current quarter mobile profits are expected to forge further ahead as the latest Galaxy model enjoys a boom before the next iPhone launch,” according to Reuters. 

Yahoo is reportedly narrowed its CEO search down to several candidates. As sources tell AllThingsD, however, the troubled company will most likely christen interim Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn or Hulu CEO Jason Kilar as its latest leader. “It’s pretty much a choice between picking a media exec or a product exec,” one source said, referring to Kilar and Levinsohn. “At this point, said sources, it appears to still be a situation that is Levinsohn’s to lose.” 

TomorrowVentures, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt VC fund, is leading a $1 million Series A investment round in YBuy -- a Southern California company, has built a monthly subscription service around the “try-before-you-buy” model for gadgets, appliances and other products. The money is expected to help YBuy scale up to handle a waiting list of 50,000 people, who, as GigaOm reports, have signed up for the service. Additional investors include David Hanna, Chairman and CEO of CompuCredit Corporation, and Jim Patterson, Chief Product Officer at Yammer. 

In other world news (with clear domestics implications), Telefonica has partnered up with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM. Per the tie-up, the European mobile giant plans to make it easier for customers to purchase digital items and subscribe to services using their mobile devices. Leveraging its “global framework agreements” with each of the four tech giants, Telefonica hopes to drive paid downloads and sales of digital goods and services, and has already begun rolling out the necessary platforms in Europe, “with plans to offer mobile billing services in 14 of its businesses worldwide by the end of the year,” The …

The Web is increasingly the center of communication, commerce and content. It’s all the more disturbing, then, that the medium can also be a very dangerous place for consumers. On July 9, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide could reportedly lose Internet access after the FBI shuts down temporary DNS servers used to assist victims of a massive internet fraud ring. As Canada’s CBC News reports, the shutdown by U.S. authorities is the last stage in Operation Ghost Click -- a two-year international investigation that officially late last year. 

Despite spirited support from Madison Ave., consumers just aren’t that into QR codes. In fact, according to Forrester Research, only 5% of Americans scanned the brand gateways between May and July of last year. What explains consumers’ tepid response? “Advertisers are looking at every way possible that they can connect with consumers,” Forrest analyst Patti Freeman Evans tells Bloomberg Businessweek. “Consumers [on the other hand] aren’t saying, ‘Oh, I really want to be able to connect with companies and brands.” As such, advertisers’ “initial enthusiasm has tempered,” says Chia Chen, an SVP at Digitas. 

Giving Google and others a run for their money, Amazon is getting into the mapping business with the acquisition of 3D mapping startup UpNext. “For Amazon, which doesn’t have a mapping service of its own, the acquisition seems to mark a move into new territory,” GigaOM reports. While the price of the acquisition is undisclosed, GigaOm hears that investors are getting a 500% return on a $500,000 investment they made 16 months ago – suggesting that the company sold for $2.5 million.